Final streeeetch!

There are fourteen days left until I fly back to California for a much-needed break from this whole MIT madness. In these fourteen days I have:

• One three-page paper, 1.5 spacing, written in Chinese about the change in China’s societal structure as reflected by clothing of different eras
• One ten-minute Chinese presentation on the same topic
• One take-home Chinese exam, in which I have to translate the phrase “cultivation and molding of humanistic spirit, and the harmony of traditional and modern cultures” into Chinese. I don’t even know what that means in English Please don’t tell me what it means (that’s cheating :P), but feel free to laugh at it.
• One 7.10 pset, which should not have existed (as per the syllabus).
• One 7.23 final.
• Two piano recitals, during which I will be performing two different Bach concertos. I love Bach. He is my 17th century lover. (Sorry, Bobby. You didn’t exist bach then. HAHA FUNNY TYPO. I will leave it as is.)
• One ATS Xifan Sunday
• One TKD banquet, during which all the freshmen and/or new team members will present a skit roasting the seniors and instructors. I helped write it. It includes song and dance. It will be epic.
• One TKD cup party. (Did I mention that we won the league cup? No? WE WON THE CUP! IT IS, ACTUALLY, A VERY LARGE CUP. OF THE DRINK-OUT-OF VARIETY, NOT THE PROTECT-YOUR-GROIN VARIETY. I had to explain this to someone Michelle two days ago. Made for an interesting conversation.)

So basically, Chinese owns my soul, Bach owns my heart, and ATS+TKD nourish my (empty, empty) body.

Also, I’ve been eating yogurt + a crushed Nature Valley granola bar anda  Sabra pretzel chips + hummus cup for lunch every other day for the past week or so. It is delicious and nutritious and I don’t think I will ever get sick of it. Until I’m back home in California eating my mommy’s delicious cooking and wondering why the hell I ever put those things in my mouth.

Also also, I’m not sure why I only blog on Tuesdays.

T3h n3rd c0nv3nt10n

This past Friday, I went to the most intense nerd gathering of my entire life (including…you know…going to MIT). Video Games Live is a concert in which an orchestra plays games from video games (live). You can imagine the kind of crowd such a concert would attract. Mainly Zelda-shirt-wearing, ubermicro-posessing (haha), wait-eight-hours-in-line-for-WoW3 hardcore geeks. Not that I’m one to talk ’cause I did the same for the seventh Harry Potter book, but still. I felt insanely out of my league, but there was so much energy that I had an enjoyable night despite myself. And the Video Game Pianist was there.

The orchestra started out playing a lot of old-school music that I didn’t recognize. I listen to a lot of Final Fantasy music (thanks to Ninad), but I’m at least a standard deviation below the average “into-games-ness” of the concert attendees, so I just sat back and watched the rest of my wing wet their collective pants at every new piece. Oh, and I also shielded my eyes from the ridiculous blinding and epilepsy-inducing lights. The concert was more like a rock concert than a symphony performance, which I’m cool with, but the dude doing lighting should be shot. The spotlights swept continuous circles through the audience, which added absolutely nothing to the performance but pain. Every 22 seconds (I counted), you would have to close your eyes from the first spotlight, and nine seconds later from the second.

The other person who should be shot is Tommy Tallarico, the MC for the event and the most narcissistic man I’ve ever seen on stage. The guy wouldn’t shut up about how PROUD he was about bring the show to Massachusetts (HIS HOME STATE OMG) for the FIRST TIME. Actually, the beginning of the concert was like a morning radio show–too much talking from annoying hosts and too little music. There was a Guitar Hero competition prior to the concert, and the winner was invited to play the game onstage (on a HUGE screen!) with Tommy doubling the guitar part and the orchestra playing in the background. At the beginning of the performance, Tommy was off on the side and all the focus was on Guitar Hero Dude, but halfway through, Tommy couldn’t take it anymore. He HAD to be at the center of attention, so he ran out in to the middle of the stage and STOOD IN FRONT OF Guitar Hero Dude and rocked out for a minute or so. After that, the concert was basically Video Games Live, FEATURING TOMMY TALLARICO. When the Video Game Pianist came on to play in One Winged Angel, Tommy had to stand in front of him and rock out, too. Holy crap that man…

While we’re on the subject of the Video Game Pianist, let me comment on how kickass he is. He has got to be the most awkward kid on the face of the planet, but he plays good music. Apparently, he’s this awesome classical pianist as well. A glaring omission from his Final Fantasy medley, however, was the Chocobo Theme! I was devestated, because 1) I love chocobos morethan hot boys and 2) th song is so damn catchy! I get it stuck in my head all the freaking time, amd I love it. People aroung me generally don’t, because it tends to come out my mouth in addition to bounce around in my head. Heh.

Then I took a cab home instead of walking five blocks to the T because it was negative fifty billion degrees outside. Every winter, I yell at myself for coming to the east coast for college because OMG BERKELEY MUST BE GORGEOUS RIGHT NOW. Friggin a I am such a retard.